CHCS Perspectives Summer/Fall 2013

PERSPECTIVES • SUMMER-FALL 2013 – Page 31 Fort Lauderdale PA Program Retains Challenge Bowl Title The Fort Lauderdale Physician Assistant Program team re- tained its title as Florida Academy Physician Assistants (FAPA) Challenge Bowl Champions during the FAPA 2013 Winter Sym- posium held March 27-March 3 in Orlando, Florida. In the highly competitive event, teams competed against one another in a medical question-and-answer format. With this year’s win, the PA program now has the distinction of being the second school in the last six competitions to dethrone four-time winners Miami Dade College. Members of this year’s first-year team were Kaitlin Abers, Anne Marie Dozier, and Joshua Cavaness. Members of the second-year teams were Natalie Wethington, Natalie Knuth, and Micaela Bartash. The championship team members were Blanca Cuervo, Nicole Banegas, and Cara Rosenfeld. PA program faculty member Angela Mesa-Taylor, M.P.A.S., PA-C, was the fac- ulty adviser for both Challenge Bowl teams. Nathan C. Driggers Participates in Flight Surgeon Course Nathan C. Driggers, a class of 2013 student, was selected by the Department of the U.S. Army School of Aviation Medicine to complete a six-week flight surgeon course in Fort Rucker, Alabama. Flight surgeons in the U.S. Army serve as a liaison between the medical and aviation commands and have both clinical and non- clinical duties. The clinical duties involve providing primary medical care to all aviation and support personnel, reviewing medical care provided by others, reviewing its impact on the flight status of an individual, and performing aeromedical and in-flight evaluations. The non- clinical duties involve providing 24-hour on-call service, establishing procedures for grounding of crewmen, monitoring the physical and mental health of all aviation personnel, and participating in Flying Evaluation Board (FEB) to determine if personnel are able to per- form aviation duties. Striking a Chord with Students: Using Music to Enhance Teaching “In the past, physician assistant students were very bored by my Clinical Laboratory Medicine course, which is designed to teach them how to use laboratory tests to diagnose diseases. To stimulate interest in the subject matter and promote more enjoyment of the classroom experience, I utilized my musical training to set lecture content to the tune of familiar songs, which I then sang to the class. Initially, I incorporated simple nursery rhyme melodies as part of a question using TurningPoint technology. I found that students enjoyed participating in the singing and became more energized in class. This helped me ‘strike a chord’ with them and motivated me to become more creative, setting course material to more elaborate songs from musicals such as “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music , as well as popular songs such as “Strangers in the Night,” “Girl from Ipanema,” and “Get the Party Started.” The songs have served as springboards for questions and discussion.” – Pamela B. Jaffey, M.D., associate professor “I have received much positive feedback regarding my incor- poration of music in lectures in course evaluations and have been told by some students that the songs aided them with study and re- tention of the material. A few students commented that they would think of the songs while taking my examinations. This year was es- pecially rewarding because I motivated the students, many of whom are quite talented in voice and dance, to surprise me with a superb song-and-dance, flash-mob presentation set to the tune of “I Got a Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. It was very moving to see the students convey a sense of pride and joy as they sang “I got a feeling that we are all going to be great PAs.” – John Rafalko, Ed.D., PA-C, professor PA Fort Lauderdale Student Accomplishments Deborah Gerbert, M.S., assistant professor, is the recipient of a grant from the National Interprofessional Initiative on Oral Health that will allow her to perform research on how the PA stu- dents’ knowledge of oral health across the lifespan improves after instruction using the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine’s Smiles for Life curriculum. This curriculum has been endorsed by the four PA organiza- tions: ARC-PA, NCCPA, AAPA, and PAEA. Students will practice the skills they learned in class by hosting educational sessions with kindergarten students from the public schools in St. Johns County, Florida. They will teach the children about how dental caries are formed, how to brush and floss their teeth, and what foods are healthier for their teeth. They will use the Student Academy of the AAPA’s “Project in a Box” materials for these sessions. Gerbert also reached out to practicing PAs in Florida by lead- ing an oral health workshop at the FAPA summer symposium in August. Her concern about oral health developed in response to researching information for her grant, especially when she discov- ered the Florida Public Health Institute reported that lack of ac- cess to oral health in Florida is a significant problem. In fact, it was a factor in the 115,000 emergency-room visits for dental con- ditions in 2010, which cost over $88 million. In related news, the Pew Center on the States stated in its 2010 paper entitled “The State of Children’s Dental Health” that it gave a grade of “F” to the state of Florida based on its ability to reach two or fewer of its eight established key policy benchmarks. Gerbert’s goal is to teach all PAs the importance of discussing oral health with their patients, evaluating each patient in light of their oral health, applying fluoride varnish to qualified patients, and referring patients for oral disease when necessary. All PAs can make a difference in the struggle to improve the oral health of Floridians. New Efforts to Improve Oral Health